


wide awake on memories

by templeofshame



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, Reddie - Fandom
Genre: Eddie is living with roommates in NYC, Everyone Is Alive, Getting Together, I guess Bowers is not alive but everyone else is alive, M/M, Post-Canon, Richie is on tour, passing mentions of canon-typical abuse and vomit, tourfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29577741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/templeofshame/pseuds/templeofshame
Summary: Richie’s not trying to pretend there’s such a thing as life going back to normal. He’s just… Well, not everyone can be like Bev and Eddie; he doesn’t have anyone to leave, any life to sayfuck itto. He’s not even fully sayingfuck itto the closet, but at least he’s told the Losers. Baby steps, maybe, but he’s pulling himself from its grip. Because if Eddie can leave another abusive “protector” and move in with fuckingroommatesat 40, Richie can start to wean himself away from the controlling protections in his own mind.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, background benverly - Relationship
Comments: 9
Kudos: 68





	wide awake on memories

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally conceived of as waveydnp's birthday present last year, but instead it became something i cannot blame her for, my white whale over the last almost year.

Richie’s not trying to pretend there’s such a thing as life going back to normal. He’s just… Well, not everyone can be like Bev and Eddie; he doesn’t have anyone to leave, any life to say _fuck it_ to. He’s not even fully saying _fuck it_ to the closet, but at least he’s told the Losers. Baby steps, maybe, but he’s pulling himself from its grip. Because if Eddie can leave another abusive “protector” and move in with fucking _roommates_ at 40, Richie can start to wean himself away from the controlling protections in his own mind.

He’s not trying to pretend that going back on tour doesn’t feel strange, like a life that doesn’t quite fit. But he’s gotta do _something_ , have some solid — if extremely temporary — ground to stand on while he figures out anything else. Might as well get lost in his own head in a hotel room in Minneapolis, in that post-show wired state, instead of in a series of meetings in which Steve flips a shit about tour cancellations.

And Richie’s not trying to avoid this part either, the existential mess, because he’s already working in some new bits. That he’s actually writing himself. About… whoever the fuck he is. Sort of. That’s one thing he’s trying. Even if he can’t exactly write directly about the alien clown, or killing a man with an axe, or memory loss, or the whiplash of remembering the most intense emotions he’s ever felt that he somehow built a life without. Things he could have properly gotten over if he’d actually had the time to process and move on. It’s just light from a dead star, or at least a dying one. The second round of trauma was recent enough that maybe the fear is fair, but he’s definitely too old and too jaded to be dealing with the whole teenage in-love-with-your-best-friend bullet he thought he’d dodged by never having close friends. Until he remembered.

And as rough as the remembering has been, Richie’s not trying to forget. Not anything, ever again, so he’s gonna need to cut back on the drinking and probably start taking… fish oil? Is that the memory thing? 

Sure, he could just Google it, but before his brain can catch him, he’s texting Eddie. 

It’s like his fingers remember what should have been, decades spent texting the number that he’s only actually had for a few months. Or maybe they’re making up for lost time. So much lost time.

_does fish oil help your memory?_

It’s a stupid thing to text about. Richie hasn’t even thought of a joke about it. And as soon as he thinks _that_ , he’s texting again. (Maybe he needs a beep beep feature on his phone. He can hear it, in Siri’s voice, but she’s not stopping him now.)

_‘cause yours is a face i don’t want to forget_

Which is, he processes, not quite a joke. It is a truth. Structured like a pickup line. Which might help it pass as a joke. But really, “fish” is the funny part and it’s wasted. What should it be, though, a joke about his mom’s vagina? Those were slightly less weird when Sonia Kaspbrak was alive. Or it could be about the new version a snake oil salesman once sea levels rise... And now he’s overthinking jokes after the moment has passed, which isn’t like him. Unless… is it? Writing his own jokes might be changing stuff in his brain.

But the worst part to overthink is the gap after he _stops_ impulsively texting the first thing that pops into his head. He’s gonna wait. Or, not wait, but just not text Eddie again until he responds. He can watch some stupid hotel room TV, write some jokes about how _Catfish_ and _Deadliest Catch_ should be the same show. Eddie might be asleep, actually; it got late while Richie was drifting back to the room on a wave of stage adrenaline.

It’s a pretty average hotel room, and Richie’s stayed in a lot. He doesn’t always spend much wired, post-show time in them, but he knows quiet rooms with aggressively innocuous paintings on the wall. This time, it’s a bird. Its head is at a quizzical angle and the background is just splashes of color, maybe a tree, maybe the sky. It’s not the kind of painting that’s aiming to make people Feel Things, but it makes Richie want to say, “yeah, man.”

That’s good. Richie is hangin’ with a painted bird and watching some show with overdramatic music and people talking, and Eddie is sleeping in New York. It’s later in New York. 

Richie’s phone buzzes. Okay, Eddie’s awake enough to link to an article on fish oil, which. That might be the kind of thing Eddie Kaspbrak can do in his sleep. Richie doesn’t really want to read it tonight, but he might have to skim to have something to say back.

Except before he can get far, there’s another notif. 

A picture. 

Richie’s fingers are back on autopilot, but now his mind is racing just as fast. A selfie. He’s looking at Eddie’s face, right now, silhouetted against a worn gray couch and angled slightly so his scar is mostly obscured. Eddie looks rumpled and sleepy and his smile has an edge of is-this-how-selfies-are-supposed-to-be and Richie wants to turn to the bird and scream something with as much gesture as voice. It takes him a minute to notice the caption: _what, this one?_ and another to remember what Eddie’s responding to, that he said he didn’t want to forget this. 

Yeah, he definitely doesn’t want to forget this.

 _That’s the one_ , Richie doesn’t text back. His fingers have to hold back, to let him look. God, he’s still not used to remembering those eyes, not for all the time he’s spent thinking about them. 

Sometimes Richie thinks about meeting those eyes for the first time in decades, the nervous smile, the intensity, the restrained courage. (He wouldn’t mind forgetting his own nausea and sudden need to get drunk.) Sometimes he imagines Eddie’s eyes in scenarios and expressions he’s never seen. But when Richie overthinks them the most, they’re wide, kind of far away, full of Thoughts. A little pixelated. Eddie’s eyes in the instant he said “oh.” After Richie told them all and before Bev said something lovely and supportive that he’d appreciated at the time, but... Now Richie wishes he could’ve held Bev’s kindness for later and kept Skype focused on Eddie’s face. Richie feels personally robbed of that detailed view of Eddie through the rest of the conversation. There was a flicker later, when Richie swears Eddie had started to say something. Something lost in the chaotic support, and as much as Richie’s grateful to have gotten them all virtually together for it, he’ll probably always wonder what it would’ve been like if he’d told Eddie one on one. If he could’ve even managed it. God, is he 40 or 14? Maybe he would’ve done it on the phone and not gotten even that moment of wide eyes. 

Now Richie’s just staring at his phone, at the awkward selfie smile that hides the intention behind it. Eddie’s not generally a selfie kind of guy — well, he hasn’t been with Richie, and there’s that self-conscious discomfort going on. But he did it anyway. And that’s —

Richie’s train of thought is promptly derailed by an incoming call.  
From Eddie Kaspbrak.  
Right now.  
_This is reality, Richie, you need to answer the damn phone!_

His fingers answer while his brain is still shorted out.

“Hey, Richie.” Eddie responds to the sound of his breath like not saying anything when you answer the phone is totally normal. Not that there’s anything normal happening right now.

“Eds?” Richie asks, as if there’s room for doubt. “You’re still up?” Oh god, does that sound like a ‘you up’ thing? Not that Eddie would think that, but… “Are you out of Ovaltine?” he deflects.

Richie can almost hear Eddie’s eyes rolling. “Alex and Eli wanted to watch The Hangover. I’m trying not to be the creepy old roommate by being the… slightly sociable middle-aged roommate.”

“So sociable you’re on the phone with me?”

Eddie pauses for half a second, just long enough for Richie to wonder if he shouldn’t be looking this gift horse in the mouth. “Have you _seen_ The Hangover?”

“Don’t tell my fans, but…” Richie lowers his voice to a stage whisper. “I haven’t. Never wanted an extra hangover in my life. But if it makes you ring me up, I’m all for it.”

The only response Richie can hear at first is a breath, but he knows it. He knows the precise way Eddie breathes in when he’s pretending he's not amused, when he doesn’t want to give Richie a laugh, but it’s there somewhere underneath. It’s a strange feeling, knowing the sound of a particular type of breath so well, when stopping to think about his own life makes him question everything. Or mostly just who the fuck he is, now that he’s back in the life he built on an absence of past. Maybe he’s been Wile E. Coyote the whole time, with his Acme Instant Netflix Special and the way he never thought about what he was standing on until he looked down.

But then has he hit the ground at the bottom yet, or is he still falling? He’s salvaged that built-on-thin-air career so his success hasn’t gone anywhere... But his sense of who the fuck Richie Tozier is and what he wants from life has...

Wait. Is Eddie talking? Richie needs someone to beep-beep him inside his own fucking head.

“... thinking about my face this time of night?”

Shit. That sounds like something Richie should have paid attention to. “Uh,” he says. Always eloquent. “It’s a good face. Reminds me of your mom.”

Eddie’s slightly exasperated groan feels familiar in all the right ways. Whoever Richie should be, whatever it means to be thrown new trauma and history and feelings and a family he chose before he’d ever seen them as adults… This little sliver he’s sure of. Whatever stupid acrobatics his heart’s doing can’t undermine that.

“It’s _possible_ that it’s easier to text you terrible jokes than to actually write something people will laugh at. And this way, the heckling is top-notch!”

“You’re writing?” Eddie asks, cutting through the banter.

“Yeah, some.” The painted bird won’t call Richie out if that’s a stretch. “Turns out I haven’t been doing the most relatable things lately.”

“There’s been plenty of time to masturbate to your girlfriend’s friend’s Facebook since Derry,” Eddie teases. “Isn’t that what people do when they’re not stabbing or being stabbed?”

Richie lifts an eyebrow, which of course Eddie can’t see. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Richie expects Eddie’s what-an-idiot laugh. Instead, he gets, “Probably. I can ask when they’re done Hangovering,” and Richie’s the one laughing. “They’re so young, like _painfully_ young,” Eddie continues, “but also, I feel like I’m back there with them. I’m fucking 40 years old, but I don’t know shit about what I’m doing. I might as well be a teenager.”

Richie’s nodding on instinct before he stops himself. “Yeah, I — Or d’you mean with the divorce?” Richie doesn’t love talking about Myra, but if Eddie wants to talk about that stuff, even Richie doesn’t want to make that about himself. He wants to know Eddie’s life, wants to read the room and be the right kind of asshole for the occasion.

“All of it, really. Like, we didn’t even _have_ teen years until now. We can finally learn from those mistakes, right? And I’m starting over. Post-clown and post-Myra and just… I don’t have anything figured out that they don’t.”

“That’s… Yeah.” Richie has thoughts, they just won’t sit still long enough for expression. Like him, maybe; different city every night and no expectation that he should make up his mind about… anything.

“Honestly, Alex and Eli probably made better teenage mistakes.” There’s a hint of something in Eddie’s voice, something bitter? Regretful? Maybe it’s what Richie should be feeling about those days, about goofing around with his trauma buddies and learning to repress the bigger feelings as they grew. But it isn’t so different this time around, and Richie’s doing fine. He’s full of defense mechanisms, and he kinda wants to defend teenage-Eddie against that tone. A tone he is definitely reading too much into and should not make into a thing.

“Better than letting some curly-haired asshole climb in your window?”

“Hey, you’re not a mistake to me, Rich.” There’s a softness in Eddie’s voice that Richie wants to hold onto, but... “I leave that for your mom.” Yep. Richie is seized with the urge to throw his cushy hotel pillow at Eddie’s head, distance be damned.

“Aren’t you missing the end of The Hangover, Mr. Teenager?” Richie regrets it as soon as he hears himself, hears the out he’s giving Eddie. You’d think with the way his mind races, he’d have learned to think before he speaks.

“Or I might be missing my 40-something bedtime,” Eddie says, confirming Richie’s fears that it’ll be back to him and his bird friend shortly. But also… Eddie’s right. It’s pretty fucking late in Minneapolis, let alone in New York. Richie’s used to late nights, but they do get harder to bounce back from and he definitely can’t justify keeping Eddie on the phone.

“Well, lemme know how you do with those teenage mistakes. I expect semi-regular drunk dials.” Richie thinks he’s being stern in a funny way, but Eddie doesn’t laugh and honestly, the tired is seeping in now that Richie’s thinking about it. Who knows what he’s saying as Eddie hangs up, really.

But he’s thinking about what Eddie said, about teenage mistakes and not knowing shit at 40 about himself and what he’s doing and… it feels pretty fucking relatable. To the kind of assholes who love his standup, and to the specific asshole who’s trying to write material for it.

So instead of turning back to the bird on the wall, Richie types one more text before collapsing into a sweaty, fully-clothed heap on the mattress.

_you might be my muse. at least, i’m musing. don’t know if you’re amused or bemused_

*

When Richie wakes up, it takes his body a minute to notice the lack of hangover. It’s not like it’s that new, the whole not getting drunk after every show thing, but feeling like shit in the morning is still very much expected. But it is still morning, just barely, and he feels okay. He’s doing a late set in Grand Rapids, so even after food and a shower he has too much time not to half-assedly try to write.

And he has an idea, thanks to Eddie. He has something he’s going through — something that doesn’t involve lying through his teeth — that won’t get him locked up in any sense of the words. All he has to do is write some jokes.

He can just sit here, under the supportive eye of that bird painting, and write some jokes.

Or — because he can self-sabotage with the best of ‘em — he can text Bev.  
_you talked to our lord of spaghetti lately?_

Richie’s not sure if it’s a good thing or a bad one that Bev’s response comes quickly.  
_just divorce happy hour. what’s up?_

Nothing’s _up_. How is it so hard to keep things casual?

_oh good. turns out i don’t have great advice on post-married life_

He’s not answering the question. Bev might keep at it; the dots move and Richie can see two paths diverge, based on how well she sees through his pivoting. So he pivots harder.

_not that you know much about being single… don’t they say something about not rushing into things?_

He may be watching Bev’s dots retreat instead of writing, but he’s thinking about it. He’s thinking about being enough of a teenager again that he’s texting Bev about a boy he should be over by now (and pretending that’s not what he’s doing). He’s a teenager who can’t stomach asking what it _means_ when a boy sends you a selfie and calls you late at night. When that boy is 40 and just escaping an abusive relationship ( _marriage_ , Richie, to a _woman_ ) and your best friend. When you know him deeply and barely at all and — maybe in both cases — better than you know yourself.

Bev is only responding to what he actually texts, though. Richie has to remind himself that when he sees her response.  
_is it really rushing when you’ve known him since grade school?_

It’s not like Richie’s heart stops. He just needs a minute to remember that everything isn’t about him. It’s not even like he’d be terribly surprised if Bev has some sense that she and Ben aren’t the only Losers caught in the throes of old emotions. But in all likelihood, she’s just talking about her own situation, at once sudden and decades in the making. Relating to that is Richie’s own problem.

It’s still there, though. It makes Richie want to dodge the obvious jokes about the changes in Ben’s body and go somewhere honest.

_you think you’re the same people as then?_

It’s something Richie thinks a lot about, the way he knows these people so deeply, to his bones, but also… they each had a whole amnesia life after Derry. Sure, they’ve bonded pretty fucking hard over a new set of near-death experiences. He knows what it feels like, to love them and trust them so fiercely, and there’s no level on which they feel like strangers. But can he be both the guy who practiced Voices on the Losers and the guy who built a life (such that it is) without them? And if it’s the guy he was until a few months ago who’s the stranger, what the fuck do you do with that?

_honestly? not far off_  
_the biggest things we went through together_

Richie can’t go far down that path without getting lost in the woods of overidentification and just… lost. It’s a more familiar feeling these days, but not one he has time for if he’s gonna be in the Trashmouth Tozier headspace by the time he gets to Grand Rapids. So he wraps the exchange up like it’s no big deal and leaves Bev with a “ _say hi to mr. not rushing for me._ ”

It’s not like it _matters_ what’s rushing or not. Or how well they do or don’t know each other now that they’ve had lives apart, but also jettisoned a lot of that. The fact is, Richie doesn’t know what his own deal is, let alone Eddie’s, let alone how to create some kind of two-headed amalgamation of their deals. 

It’s just… What does it _mean_? Maybe Eddie’s just learning how to use the selfie camera on his phone, maybe it’s his roommates’ influence, maybe The Hangover is just that bad. He doesn’t even know if Eddie’s… Well. Richie’s thought — too much over the years — that Eddie might be _something_. But Richie’s gaydar has always been at least half wishful thinking.

Right now, he’s wishing he was past all this. It’s too much thinking. But if Richie’s gonna think too hard about who he is (and not at all about Eddie, of course not), he might as well get some words on the page.

*  
_So, here’s the thing: I didn’t even remember being a teenager until recently. Like, it must’ve happened, right? They don’t let preteens stand up here and say this kind of shit to you. But it’s been a long time, okay, and I sure didn’t get responsible, but I did get… middle-aged. My memory’s not what it used to be._

_I just sorta took the media’s word on the teenage experience: drama, intense feelings, everything revolves around you, yada yada. Until I realized: I’m fucking doing it again. I, Richie Trashmouth Tozier, am a 40-year-old teenage disaster._

*  
If Richie’s going to keep this whole not-getting-drunk-after-the-show thing up, he’s gonna have to make other plans or he might end up productive. Sleep just isn’t a reasonable goal, and it’s not like there are things he’s been dying to do in Grand Rapids at night. Unless you count calling Eddie.

And the thing is, Richie might have _less_ self-control than he did when he was speeding around Derry on a bike. He’s built a career on low impulse control and, yeah, the tour gives him more structure than he’s had in a while, but at the end of the day, he knows no one’s stopping him from most things and… it is now the end of the day.

And it’s not gonna get any less late. So if he’s calling Eddie tonight, he’s gotta seize the moment, not waste time agonizing about the ways it might be a bad idea. That’s just what other people think. Blah blah blah distance blah masochistic blah, but it’s not. Maybe he’s too old to admit that he kind of enjoys the rush — the way his heart tenses when it’s bracing for more Eddie in his life — but it doesn’t hurt him. And it’s not Richie’s fault, either. He’s had decades of space against his will and they didn’t help; thinking about it speeds his fingers on his phone because fuck that clown, fuck everything It took from them, past and future. Even if he’d had that time for teenage feelings to fade, Eddie’s his best friend. He wants to talk to Eddie and tonight, the only person who can squash that is Eddie himself.

Maybe he will, Richie thinks, as the phone rings and rings and goes to voicemail. Listening to Eddie’s stiff, polite voicemail message isn’t anything like talking to him, but something about it cracks Richie up. Something about the type of Eddie it is, grownup professional Eddie, the way he’s put on something that Richie can see through. He doesn’t actually need to leave a message after the tone, but professional-Eddie is literally asking for it. “Put down the briefcase, asshole,” he says, then hangs up. It’s far from the stupidest message he’s ever left, actually.

Richie’s still laughing when he fumbles to answer the call. So Eddie Spaghetti’s not squashing his hopes tonight after all. And maybe Richie’s been living in California too long, since the urge to make a spaghetti squash joke is bubbling up inside him.

“Hello! Richard Tozier speaking,” Richie says in his best businessman. It’s not good.

“I don’t sound like that,” Eddie whines, and Richie is immediately happy with his decision. Eddie Kaspbrak’s whine is one of the finer things in life.

“You don’t.” Richie flops down on the pristine hotel bed. “But some asshole named Edward Kaspbrak does, and he’s got ahold of your voicemail.”

“We can’t all tell people to go fuck themselves for a living.”

“Yeah? Have you tried? Bet you could find a market…” Richie does his best to make his raised eyebrow audible.

“Fuck you.”

“Now, Eds, who’s gonna pay if you’re giving it out for free?” It’s comfortable, easy. It’s exactly what Richie wanted. Just Eddie.

“I dunno, man, but it seems to work for you. I bet your hotel room is bigger than my whole apartment.”

“Yeah, well. Come to Grand Rapids and rent yourself a New York mansion.” 

Eddie’s chuckle does a gravelly thing Richie wants to frame on his wall. “Honestly, though, what am I doing here.” It’s not a question, not for Richie to touch, anyway. “It felt like the easy way to start over. Have all the options. Keep my job.”

“And turn the end of a horror movie into the beginning of a sitcom? Is that what the roommates are about, giving yourself the Kimmy Schmidt treatment?”

“It felt like the way to learn how to be… something new? I have roommates who forget to take out the trash. I take the subway now! I’m a speck in the mass of humanity and it’s…kind of refreshing?”

“I’m stuck on the part where you have roommates who don’t take out the trash and you haven’t killed them yet.”

Eddie’s whine creeps back in, just a little. “They’re good guys! Although…”

“Oh no,” Richie starts.

“No, they just… I joined them when they were watching your Netflix thing so now they might think I’m a fan? Of you?”

“What are you sayin’, Eds? You’re resigning as fan club president? I’ll need that lock of my hair back, then.”

Eddie doesn’t dignify Richie’s words with a response, which… fair. “Somehow they love your shit, but they’re so innocent, really. They don’t seem to feel that other side of New York that just…”

“Makes you hate humanity?”

“That’s…” Eddie stumbles for a fraction of a second. “Yeah.”

“Ah, New York.” Richie lays the yearning on thick. “We’ll meet again.”

“Weirdly late in your tour, honestly. Is your booking agent from the Midwest?”

“It’s actually to give you time to get out. They’ve gotta have risks all over, just begging to be analyzed.” 

“I’ll be here,” Eddie says, a little earnest, until he undercuts it. “How the fuck am I supposed to choose somewhere else?”

Richie looks around the generic hotel room. He knows, logically, that it’s in Grand Rapids, that the club and the crowd were rooted in that city, but it doesn’t feel quite real. “Tour is good for not choosing. I follow the schedule, and I’m not in one place for more than a couple days. Bonus is, people can’t get sick of me.”

“Come on, Rich,” Eddie says gently. “I’m sure they can still manage it if they really try.”

Richie’s laugh catches him mid-glasses removal; it takes him a minute to find them again in the creases of the comforter. “Spaghetti Man gets off a good one! Why did I call you again?”

“Oh, was there — Sorry. What’s up?” Eddie sounds genuinely apologetic, and Richie wishes he’d been funny enough to erase that, to keep his meaning clear.

“No, Eds, that’s exactly why. You’re just the right kind of sick of me.”

*

That night, Eddie doesn’t say anything about having to work in the morning, and Richie doesn’t say anything about writing. 

Which he’s doing fairly regularly. In the mornings, when Eddie presumably has to work (and when neither of them got enough sleep to justify functioning). In the awkward pre-show stretch of time where Richie just wants to avoid thinking about all the ways he could fuck up his set again. That gets easier when he’s writing, and as he continues to not fuck up his sets. But writing his own material creates new ways he could crash and burn in the future. Ways that rely on his own decisions, his own work, and not random chance or the sudden return of childhood trauma...

But he has to try all the same. He’s been putting the work in, and the crowd in Chicago is surprisingly supportive, and it just… happens. Richie’s telling his own jokes and people are laughing at least politely and reality is remaining intact in a way Richie doesn’t take for granted.

*

_The real problem with being a teenager at my age is it’s fucking exhausting. I just don’t have the stamina anymore; middle-aged guys, I know you’re out there, you know how it is._

_I can handle living in my own squalor, lashing out at authority figures, and doing dumb shit for attention… that’s just showbiz. I’m a pro at that shit._

_Honestly, I’ve done a lot in my [mumble] years, traveled the country and sweated my ass off under these godforsaken lights and made… more mistakes than the average teenager, that’s for sure. But feelings? And questioning myself and the world around me? It’s fucking tiring! I don’t know how to handle this shit!_

_At least the last time I went through adolescence, I thought I’d get something good out of it: clear skin, a real job, laid. High hopes, right? But this time I know how it ends._

_With me. This idiot right here. Comes down to it, I’m the punchline._

*  
Richie doesn’t wish Bev still lived here, not with how that went for her, but he does wish he had a good reason not to “network” in Chicago. Why couldn’t Mike cross paths with him here? They’re meeting up in Columbus, where Richie doesn’t need to avoid anyone. But here he is, and even though he’s hamming up the teenager thing now, he can’t exactly tell Steve he’s waiting by the phone for Eddie. Not that the concept of waiting by the phone is a thing anymore, or that he doesn’t call Eddie as often as it’s the other way around, but that ‘50s schoolgirl feeling still resonates.

He tries, half-heartedly, to plead exhaustion. It’s not like Steve hasn’t noticed that Richie hasn’t been going out, that his hotel rooms have more of an allure for him these days. And Richie doesn’t need to needle his way into the good graces of other comics; he’s made it this far without their help. At least, not much. Would he even know? He’s shared bills with these guys, and too many drinks, and made them laugh. He’s never been close to them, or even followed the ups and downs of their careers, but maybe this is the kind of thing that works silently behind the scenes. He’s never been a comic’s comic, but… couldn’t hurt to half-ass an attempt? Ugh. He should.

That’s how he ends up at a bar, nursing a cherry coke and feeling extremely called out by the idea that these are his peers. They don’t even say anything about his set, about the jokes he wrote, and it feels too vulnerable to ask. He’s not supposed to give a rat’s ass, but he just wants a minute to be… _proud_. He just doesn’t have it in him to keep up the Trashmouth Tozier act when no one’s paying him, and it’s not like he can be _himself_ , not really. So as Joe and Greg and Dave get progressively drunker and louder, Richie gets quieter — people who actually knew him would notice that — and watches. Like he’s watching himself, but not. Like he’s slipping out of his body to watch his persona take over. 

Greg reaches across the table to grab one of Richie’s fries without asking. He bumps Richie’s phone, which is lying face-up on the table in front of him. (As it turns out, Richie can play the sitting-by-the-phone game in many locations these days, and multitask it, too.)

The phone skitters towards the table’s edge and Richie grabs for it, a little too panicked. It feels safer when it’s in his hand, as stupid as that sounds.

Greg laughs, fry guts peeking out from between his front teeth. _Richie’s_ fry guts. “Got something good there, Rich? Or _someone_?” The eyebrow waggle is entirely unnecessary, but Greg seems committed to it.

Richie looks at his phone, feigning confusion. “You know Siri’s not a woman, right? And we’re at a bar with actual women in it?” As soon as the words come out, Richie hates them. The implications. He didn’t have to respond to Greg at all, didn’t need to actively put the idea of a woman in front of him like a shield. They could’ve assumed it themselves — they’ve never seemed to think otherwise — but instead he’s asserted a closet and it feels like shit.

“Yeah?” Dave asks, eloquent as ever. “Gotta move fast then, bud; Chicago girls are a limited time offer for you.”

Richie clenches his fist around his phone and takes a big gulp that’s mostly melted ice. Dealing with these guys is a limited time offer too, but buying himself 30 seconds doesn’t help. “Actually,” he starts, “that teenage exhaustion thing is no joke. Except for it being, y’know, a joke. But.”

It’s not awkward unless he makes it awkward. That’s what he tells himself as his ankle smacks on his stool and his elbow scrapes across the table. Maybe the guys aren’t even looking at him. Then his phone starts vibrating in his hand and he knows they are and he doesn’t even have it in him to perk up at the likely caller. It’s all he wanted and somehow it just feels… bad. It doesn’t fit here. He’s cultivated this, this plot of land that just wants to kill the good in his life.

It’s probably in his head that their grins are getting wider. Or maybe it’s because he’s abandoning more than a few fries. Richie’s so focused on getting the fuck out that he’s most of the way out the door before he turns to give a half-wave half-salute. He wonders if he’s famous enough to chalk his awkward shit up to the same kind of celebrity weirdness that gets kids named Moon Unit.

He decides the answer is no, because he’s taking a normal Uber back to the hotel. It’s only when he’s getting out that he processes that somewhere between their hightop and the curb, the vibration stopped. So now he’s alone, outside the hotel, with the benefit of fresh-ish air and a missed call from Eddie Kaspbrak. He kind of doesn’t want to talk to Eddie anymore; he wants to yell at pigeons and kick things. He wants to dig further into misery, but also, he can’t just ignore Eddie.

He can text Eddie, say he feels shitty and he’s going to sleep. And maybe he’ll lurk awkwardly outside the hotel before actually doing that, because watching cars drive through puddles is somehow calming. That’s where his mind is when he swipes at the wrong moment and hears ringing. Just for a second, though, because Eddie doesn’t give him time to recalculate.

“Richie!” He sounds genuine in a way that starts to crack Richie’s shell. Like Eddie’s just glad for the call, and he’s free of all the judgment Richie’s putting on himself. The clouds don’t part and the feelings don’t vanish, but he can feel beads of hope condensing on his skin, like if Eddie was breathing it onto a cold window and then Richie would draw something in it, something new, and it makes no fucking sense but also it feels like something new could be real. For him. God. What the fuck.

“Edward,” Richie says, solemn. “People laughed at my jokes.” He doesn’t decide to say it, but it happens anyway. Not a rant about asshole comics or closets, but something that almost resembles… pride.

“Is that… unusual?”

“ _My_ jokes. Like, from my brain and not just my mouth.”

“Wait, what? Your… Like _your_ your?”

“Exactly like that, and just as comprehensible.” It feels more awkward to tell Eddie now that Eddie’s grasping it, and what does Richie even want him to say? “I’m just… kinda wound up, sorry. What’s up with you?”

“Richie, that’s a big deal!” Only Eddie would yell at Richie for... what, downplaying his accomplishment? It’s the dumbest things that make something catch in Richie’s throat, or heart, or somewhere. And the dumbest places he goes to hide from that.

“Yeah, dude. Your mom was pretty impressed.” 

Eddie sputters, and it feels like old times.

“I can’t get too real with it, though. No alien clowns, no gay shit, what’s even left of me?” Well, maybe he could talk about not being able to get over his best friend without making it gay, but not if there’s any chance of it ending up on YouTube. And there’s always a chance.

“Please tell me you didn’t do Voices as your first new thing.”

Richie can only hope that his dramatic chest-clutching is audible. “Oh, the Voices will come, Eddie my love. But no. You were my muse, though, with the whole second teenage phase thing. And people laughed, so… thanks.” Richie swallows and wonders if he should’ve stuck to your mom jokes. Thanking Eddie always feels a little too honest, a little too vulnerable. Eddie deserves it, he just doesn’t deserve… the weight of what’s behind it. The last thing Richie wants is to make his feelings Eddie’s problem.

“Yeah? That worked out? I wanna hear.” 

“So you say now,” Richie jokes, or dodges. 

“Wait... Chicago got the jokes before I did.” Eddie states, voice suddenly flat. Is Eddie… annoyed? And does he… know Richie’s tour schedule? 

“You ever want the spoilers, you got ‘em, Eds. You’ve got a reputation to uphold with the roomies, huh?”

“But like, who do you test your stuff on?” Eddie asks, and it occurs to Richie that Steve is going to kill him for the answer. (Actually, how has Steve not called and/or killed him yet?)

“Um… Chicago?”

Eddie doesn’t respond right away. There’s some kind of rustling in the background and it occurs to Richie both that Eddie probably has to listen to all sorts of obnoxious city noise around Richie and that he has no idea where Eddie is or what he’s doing. When Eddie does start to speak is also when Richie feels awkward enough to keep talking, so their words collide somewhere in between, maybe east of Cleveland. 

“Would you actually want —” Richie starts, crashing into Eddie’s “Do you not want —” and somehow, the resulting impact feels just as exposed as any thanks. Maybe that’s why they both pull back, and it’s a more awkward sort of silence.

“Sorry,” Richie says. “I just talk to fill the void, you go.”

“I just… wasn’t sure if there’s a reason. That you wouldn’t want me to hear your stuff.”

“And I’d call you about it? Eds...” Suddenly Richie doesn’t want to be on the street. He knows that he hadn’t even meant to call, and somehow that guilt is sending him to his room, like a scolded child. He pushes himself through glass doors, across the lobby, into an elevator.

“You don’t have to. It’s not like… Sorry. I’m really glad it went well.”

Richie’s fumbling with the stupid glitchy keycard one-handed. “It’s not great,” he starts.

“I’m sure it’s —”

“But I could do it for you? Work on it more before next time? And if you hate it, I can stop.” Normally he’d collapse on the bed, but the tension in his body wants him to perch on the edge of a chair, and Richie is in no position to deny it.

Eddie’s voice, though, sounds like collapsing on a hotel bed. Almost breathy with the space for relief in just the word “Yeah?” It’s the kind of weirdly loaded moment that Richie simultaneously wants to preserve and needs to poke at until it pops.

“For you, Eds… I will shut up on request. But only when I’m trying out a new bit, and you can’t tell anyone. Definitely not the group chat.”

“I’m only laughing if it’s funny,” Eddie warns, without any edge at all.

“You out of my fan club’s earshot? Then welcome to Trashmouth Tozier’s Comedy Hour, and be very glad I don’t have an hour of my own shit yet.”

And when Eddie does laugh, it means something new. They never make it through a phone call without laughing, and in a way that’s more real, but this is… It hits in a different place to hear Eddie laugh at Richie’s own actual work. Somewhere beneath the giddy teenage thing. Richie feels like he’s done something right for once. A lot of things, really, to get here. Richie _should_ be here, in a Chicago hotel room in the middle of the night, sharing his stuff with Eddie, and maybe… he should be feeling exactly what he’s feeling. 

*

“... can’t exactly advertise it. No one wants to hear 20% authentic. But it’s good, Rich, I get it. Chicago felt fresh, and that’s important for a comeback so it doesn’t look like you’re grasping at…”

Richie knows he should be listening, he really does. But Steve has a way of taking perfectly reasonable, even important things and beating them to death. Any meeting with Steve will easily expand to fill the time there is, and the schedule in Indianapolis isn’t giving him an out. Maybe the restaurant will ask them to leave; they finished their lunches ages ago. But until then… Richie might be texting under the table.

_is that edward kaspbrak guy available to take this meeting? seems like his thing, hella boring_

“... keep the team, but rework the contracts…” 

Richie isn’t surprised when his phone screen blinks awake just as it’s fading. But he’s surprised by the name on it. Stan hasn’t been a big texter, at least not with Richie, and he can’t imagine that it’s out of any fondness for Richie’s voice.

_I hear that you’re writing jokes about your life._

Richie starts typing to clarify, to explain just how wide the gap is, even writing his own stuff, between his life as the Losers know it and his act. A chasm, really. It makes Richie’s stomach a little woozy to think about, whether eventually he’ll be writing jokes about treating his girlfriend like shit. At least no one expects to hear him talk about how great clowns are or how he’s never killed a man with an axe. Wait, or could there be something there?

Stan texts again before Richie has his answer figured out: _You’re welcome to make fun of me as long as I’m not identifiable. And I want good seats._

_your homeowner’s association guys would have to admit to watching me to say anything, though? mutually assured destruction._

Richie adds an explosion emoji. Steve told him once, he’s gotta take pride in what he does, in the details. So really, that explosion emoji is a version of listening to Steve. Just not to whatever Steve’s going on about right _now_.

_It’s the fame that’s the scary part. Guess I have to put the fear somewhere._

Oh, Stan. Richie’s not sure how to feel in these moments, especially when they’re not in person. It’s not always as easy to slap a joke on the wound as Richie wants it to be. But he likes the implication, really, that Stan doesn’t have the more serious places to direct his fear anymore. _don’t worry, you only come up in the one where i’m confessing to manslaughter.  
but i might have to merge you with my ‘girlfriend’ if we keep meeting like this _

Richie realizes that instead of sneaking a glance at his phone, he’s basically sneaking a glance at Steve. Who is still talking. It is a miracle of Steve’s questionable social skills that he doesn’t seem to have noticed. Richie gives him a few nods and thoughtful looks, though, as another text from Stan arrives.

_You aren’t still doing that, right?_

Richie types _closet life 4eva! or closet life 4now_ , but some valve in his heart tightens. Of course Stan wouldn’t understand. He’s spent a lot of life being afraid — and it’s fucked him up — but not the same way, not like he’d live behind a wall of lies before letting himself be seen. Stan even laughed off the Jew jokes of Richie’s youth that were, in retrospect, pretty fucking terrible. Richie was in-your-face and Stan was restrained, and yet… Stan never hid things for long. And now Richie’s here, enjoying the success he built on a lot of bullshit that’s not who he is, and Stan doesn’t get it at all.

Maybe Richie should actually listen to Steve rather than continue on this path. But then he hears Steve say something about reaching a younger audience with his authentic self, “the YouTube generation,” and Richie can’t do it. He starts to get up before he has an excuse to make.

“Sorry, my stomach is — I ate too fast,” he mumbles as he heads for the bathroom. He doesn’t look back to see if Steve buys it, but the guy has seen him vomit a few too many times for him to question.

The bathroom is a single stall with a tile floor and once the door’s shut, he can sink to it and confirm that the tile is cool and somehow soothing. It’s pretty stupid that he needs that, he thinks. Just because Stan and Steve are on about authenticity and they can’t grasp what that means for Richie, that coming out as a public figure is something he’s just not — Well. It’s not that he’s not ready, really, it’s just not a feasible thing. He’s thought about it plenty, in the high after coming out to the Losers and long before, when he was alternately afraid of the secret getting out and of dying alone and unloved. He’s _wanted_ to come out for literal ages. But he can’t just quit the persona cold-turkey, even if it’s just the parts about women.

What he can do, though, is take a deep breath and read Stan’s response. Which will either be reasonable and chill, or serve to justify Richie’s reaction. So. It’s fine.

_I just thought you might shift to a less misogynistic corner of the Straight Guy Experience.  
But now I’m curious about this “4now”..._

Oh. Well. It’s possible that the fact of Richie crouched on the floor of a public restroom is not _entirely_ about Stan thinking the end of ghostwriters might be the end of “my girlfriend” jokes. And it’s possible that Steve will come after Richie if he doesn’t get back out there, so. Richie peels himself off the floor, avoids looking at his reflection, and heads back out. He doesn’t think about what he’ll say, not to Steve or to Stan. His phone lights up with another text, but he doesn’t look.

Steve is looking across the room at him like he’s actually concerned, and Richie remembers what an asshole he is. Richie could tell Steve what he’s thinking right now, and they could make a plan. Steve would probably be thrilled; they haven’t made a good five-step plan in ages. And Steve would understand the career implications, all the factors he’s probably been weighing since the first time he used a spare hotel key for an early-morning wakeup.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks. His attention focused, his words straight to the point. Now that something’s wrong.

Richie could just say it. But it would feel like a big deal at this point. And it’s not a conversation for a public place. And, just, he doesn’t want to. He wants to fast-forward to a time where it’s over and he can just say some dumb gay shit instead of dumb straight shit.

“I think I’ll rest up before the show. Catch up later?”

For now, Richie turns and leaves.

*

Richie is bad at ignoring texts. Even when he’s trying to give himself the space necessary to function like a rational human being. Even when he’s wallowing in self-pity, or pouting. Eddie, on the other hand — not that Richie’s thinking about Eddie — has always given excellent pout, and not just in terms of cuteness. He can dig his feet in and stand. He isn’t typically what Richie would call “patient,” but stubborn, yeah. Eddie could definitely ignore a text from Stan when he’s not ready to deal with it and he’s already blowing off actual adult responsibilities and he knows the back of a cab isn’t the place, but…

Richie doesn’t have that self-control, and the text isn’t from Stan.

_I was literally in a meeting, dickwad. You know, the kind where I can’t text._

Oh. Right. He’d texted Eddie.  
_i may have bailed on mine_

_I need a job where I can do that.  
Or just one that doesn’t think they know me, but in a pre-Derry way? Does that make sense?_

_yeah, dude, you’re talking to a guy whose job still has him making shitty jokes about his “girlfriend”_  
Also a guy who very nearly trips on his way out of the cab and falls on his face, which, luckily, isn’t considered his key selling point. But Eddie doesn’t need to know that.  
_stan thinks it’s pathetic and he’s the only other loser who didn’t divorce someone or quit a job or move_

Eddie’s response is immediate. (Maybe he’s on his lunch break? Richie imagines him bringing a lunch to work in a little insulated bag and a grin creeps across his face.) _What the fuck, Stan? Did he say that?_

_call off the wolves. he was tactful and whatever, just expected me to be more me, i guess_

_Oh, well, you can’t do that. You have to be funny!_

Richie considers sending a stage direction about clutching his heart, then scrolls through the emojis for a moment in the hotel elevator. Skull and crossbones? Wounded smiley? Shocked face? Instead, he goes with _do you kiss your spreadsheets with that mouth?_

_When you’re in New York, I’m gonna drag you into my office because what the fuck do you think I do?_

Richie weighs the merits and drawbacks of pointing out how kinky that sounds. He drafts three versions of a joke, makes it into his room, and kicks his shoes at the door before he switches to _i promise to kick and scream the whole way  
might get a set out of it, actually. about how fucking weird and repressed you office-dwellers are_

 _Hey! Write about your own weirdness and repression!_ Eddie shoots back.

Richie’s impulse is to laugh, to joke that if he’s repressed, we should all be very afraid. But then it catches up to him. He is, isn’t he? “Repressed”? Holding back?

Fuck. He really is. Some kind of goofy (but less funny) Robin Williams genie bottling up an avalanche. And not just in a public image sort of way. He came out to the Losers pretty quickly, he makes all the gay jokes he can’t put on stage, but that’s not the hardest part anymore.

And Eddie knew him enough to say that. Eddie _knows_. Maybe not what all it is, but he can see that the avalanche is there. 

And now Richie’s making it weird by not responding. He types, before he can overthink this part too. _yours is endearing, mine is just exhausting_. Half a second later, he’s not sure if he’s deflecting or digging the hole deeper when he adds, _might actually just say fuck it and come out_

_I’ve been thinking about that too._

_when i’m gonna come out? are the superfan roomies talking too much about me and the ladies?_

_Not you, shithead.  
I told Myra when I left, but it feels weird with Alex and Eli not to say anything._

Richie’s hands don’t know whether to freeze or shake. Typing is definitely not on the menu. So he sits there, with a vice-grip on his phone, and speaks to the extreme close-up of a dewdrop on a leaf that’s watching him from the wall opposite the window: “What the fuck, Eddie.” Once he’s said it into the stale air three times, he’s calm enough to hit call and say it to the man himself.

Eddie laughs, the bastard, while Richie’s heart is running laps in its own tiny red shorts. “I thought you’d be the I-knew-it kind. Remember at the Jade of the Orient? ‘To a woman?’”

“You can wonder and not… Dude, your roommates? What about us?”

“You guys are easy—”

Richie knows he’s handling this badly, that however chill Eddie’s acting, it’s a tough thing and it’s not supposed to be about Richie. This is supposed to be about Eddie, Eddie deserves his moment, but Richie’s never had that much self-control. So here he is, cutting Eddie off. “— Do they all know already?”

Eddie sighs. “I’m gradually working it into conversations. I couldn’t handle the spotlight of your way, with everyone looking at me. Not without my inhaler.” Eddie just breathes for a second, then continues. “I never wanted to keep it from you. I just had to work out — was I really stupid enough, or scared enough to marry Myra if I’m gay? And is it even worth the effort to figure it out at this point?”

Richie feels his lungs fill and empty, feels the blood in his ears and wills it back into his brain. It’s not like this moment was unfathomable. It’s just… different. When it’s real, when it’s Eddie and he’s telling Richie… something. A queer something. _“If I’m gay.”_

“You’ve got time,” Richie says.

“Maybe,” Eddie says, “but I’ve wasted so much. We all have, Rich, but I don’t know if… I try to start over, but is it delusional? Is it too late?”

“Hey,” Richie says. “We’re 40, we’re not dead.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie says, but it has weight. For them, that’s such a fucking achievement. To be alive, to have time. “I don’t want to waste that too.”

Richie’s world has shrunk down to his hand on the phone, Eddie’s voice in his ear, but also the memory of handlebars in his grip and air whipping past his knobby-kneed self when he needed to be where Eddie was. “Where are you right now?”

“What? Work. In my office, with the door closed?”

“Fucking New York.” Richie pauses. “Where am I? I could be in New York.” He looks out the window. It’s definitely not New York. There’s too much space between buildings, too few people, and not a single cab in sight.

“You’re in Indianapolis.” So Eddie definitely knows his tour schedule and Richie just _loves_ him and why does Eddie have to be right?

“I could be in New York, you don’t know,” Richie argues just for the pleasure of an eyeroll he can’t even see. “I think we’ve earned teleportation, don’t you? The least It could do, really.”

“I wish,” Eddie says, and Richie feels it. Wishful thinking hadn’t done him much good in the past and it won’t teleport him to New York, but Eddie’s at least kinda gay and wishes Richie were there and it’s… a lot. Enough of what Richie’s wished for that part of him is waiting for the catch. Maybe Eddie will slip in that he’s going for a run in Central Park with his boyfriend. Clean-cut, smart, abs. A stable job with a real plant in his office that he keeps alive. A name like… Carl. Richie would vomit all over that pristine hotel comforter.

Eddie breaks the silence that would probably feel awkward if Richie weren’t trying — and thankfully failing — to imagine Eddie laughing at Carl’s jokes. “Are you working on jokes for after? If you — Like, ‘my boyfriend’ jokes, or what?”

It startles a laugh out of Richie. Both at the idea of having a boyfriend and at the word, at how _young_ Eddie sounds saying it. He’s never thought twice about it with his “girlfriend” jokes, never felt too old for the concept, but Eddie says it like it could be a real thing and Richie just can’t hold back.

“Nah, dude. I’m going for full, pathetic authenticity.” He says it like it’s real, like he’s not gonna wimp out, or like Steve won’t talk him out of it. Like maybe Eddie’s courage can rub off on him. “I was actually thinking, the whole second adolescence bit? The gay version kinda writes itself.”

“Not like that’s exactly what I was going through when I brought it up or anything,” Eddie deadpans.

Richie retraces that conversation in his mind, the night Eddie first said he felt like a teenager, the night of the unsolicited selfie. His brain races to catch up with his heart, while his tongue does a horrible job of covering for them. “Made any good teenage mistakes lately?” Richie asks before he can catch it and just… not.

Eddie hesitates. “No,” he says, without conviction, but it’s enough for Richie to suspect he’ll escape his question unscathed. “Maybe that’s the mistake?”

“Ooh!” Richie is too emotionally volatile today to hold back the sound of epiphany as he brings the conversation back around. “That’s how you come out to the roommate bros. You get drunk with ‘em.”

*

Eddie is not interested in taking Richie’s advice. Not about getting drunk, or leaving an “I’m gay” (or queer) post-it on the fridge, or having Richie do it as a celebrity singing telegram. It’s possible that that has something to do with Eddie deciding that his lunch break has gone on too long. But when Richie hangs up he feels more… himself.

He’s running on that queer momentum when he texts Steve. He doesn’t want to deal with a phone call, and realistically, Steve doesn’t either. It’s been a weird enough afternoon for both of them, and Richie’s supposed to be resting up for tonight. So he can go onstage. Put on his regular Trashmouth self, sprinkle in a few of his own jokes, and send the audience home happy with their mediocre comedy taste. It’s not like anything’s going to change tonight. Except the things that… fuck.

Realistically, nothing has changed. They’re the same people with the same friendship that they had yesterday. It’s just that now, Richie has to spend his pre-show hours analyzing his memory of every single thing Eddie’s done since Derry. It’s not Richie’s fault, he doesn’t make the rules.

Just like Richie didn’t send that selfie. He didn’t start the thing where they call each other. Eddie did those things. And Eddie is just… out there, in New York, living his life. Working his boring office job. Hanging out with kids nearly 20 years younger than him. Being more or less gay and more or less perfect. 

And Richie knows that the vast majority of gay men are not attracted to him, and Eddie goes to the gym in New York City, _Christ_ , he just... Wishful thinking doesn’t look so bad from here. He’s never been great at not looking for hints, but now he feels the pull of the Pepe Silvia meme. It’s probably good that a crazy wall isn’t compatible with his current level of travel.

Richie is just… not subtle. He’s been playing to the cheap seats for too many years. On the other hand, Eddie’s no enigma, but he holds plenty back. Richie’s still figuring out how it works as genuine adults, when Eddie’s not just gonna shove his way into a hammock. Besides, they’re each still figuring out their own shit, and they’re never even in the same city.

But they’re in the same time zone now. The tour is weaving its roundabout way towards New York. Before long, Richie will be there, in Eddie’s city, in the same physical space. And he can’t wait, and he’s sure he’ll find more for his mental crazy wall, but there’s also something mildly terrifying about the idea. Of crossing the barrier that’s been between them since they left Derry. Of standing there, in front of Eddie, and having to face up to exactly how unsubtle he’s been. 

Of course, then he’ll go back onstage and spew a mix of his own jokes and ones about bullshit he’s never felt. Just like he will in a couple hours. But it still seems like being in New York will make part of it real.

Right now, though, his stomach is growling, he probably needs to say something to Stan, and he has a text from Steve. Somehow that feels easier than figuring out whether or not Stan even knows that Richie’s left him hanging in a moment of panic, so… Steve it is.

_Richie, that sounds like a great authenticity goal. Let’s talk about a plan to work up to it after the tour._

Five fucking steps, then.

*

The thing about Mike is that he’s so reliable. Not that Richie’s not an asshole, he totally is, but Mike just doesn’t take over his mental focus the way that certain other people do. Richie loves him and honestly owes him more than he’ll ever be able to repay, but their friendship is easy. 

So maybe Richie should have spared more brain cells for getting pumped, spent more time lost in anticipation of Columbus, where his path and Mike’s would cross, and less thinking about New York New York New York. It just feels like… A Thing. Seeing Eddie again. In the flesh. 

Don’t think about flesh.

There is current reality to think about, and the current reality is Richie is late to meet Mike. And he knows Mike’s not late because he sent the Losers groupchat a photo of the sign on the green room door. At least the venue people apparently didn’t give him a hard time about getting back there.

And it’s not really Richie’s fault he’s late. He can’t get anywhere faster than the van does, and the van had to deal with whatever mess was going on in Columbus’ rush hour. Sure, they could’ve left earlier, but there shouldn’t actually be enough people in Ohio for that much traffic. And maybe Richie lost track of time while he was writing. But he was _writing_! And packing his shit up is such a scam when he’s just gonna have to dig the same things out in the next hotel.

But now he’s just late enough to be an asshole, and Mike doesn’t look surprised in the slightest. He has his nose in a book, because of course he does.

“Sorry, man,” Richie says. “I was worried you wouldn’t recognize me if I was respectful of your time.”

Mike drops the book immediately, and Richie notices that it’s some kind of pretentious history of the venue. Not something Mike brought, not anything he’d want to read. Mike’s been stuck in a boring fucking green room in the Midwest, reading about nothing, because Richie still hasn’t gotten his shit together.

His body is tense with guilt when Mike’s strong arms settle around him. It makes the hug awkward, but doesn’t touch its warmth. Solid, firm, but gentle. Mike Hanlon. Richie can’t stay tense for too long.

“Good to see you, man,” Mike says. “The two nomads cross paths at last.” 

“Are you secretly a poet?” Richie teases, feeling lighter now that Mike’s pulled away. “Ben might be mad if you beat him to a chapbook.”

“We’ll have to fight it out when I get there.”

Oh, right. Mike’s on his way (more or less) to visit Ben and Bev, then on to meet up with Bill. Richie wants to think he’s lucky, traveling from Loser to Loser and anywhere he wants to go between, but really, it’s brave. Those decades of Derry, of the dusty librarian life, of being alone… Maybe they helped Mike get his priorities straight. 

“I’m eating via the food minimum, but do you need something? I can brave your adoring fans,” Mike offers.

Richie waves him off. “I always perform on an empty stomach,” he says. “Keeps me feral.” And keeps his vicinity free from vomit, but Richie’s not gonna say that. He’s not gonna mention the memory that comes to mind, when a call from Mike made him spew his guts off a fire escape.

“I should grab a good seat, then,” Mike says, “but you have to eat after.”

“Hey. You can’t talk like my mom before a show! Then I’ll seek your approval and it’s a whole mess.”

Mike grins as he slips out into the hall and leaves Richie to his pre-show routine.

*  
_As a born-again teenager, I’ve been thinking a lot about mistakes. Not the very public kind I’m an expert in but… mistakes of the teenage variety. After a scientific review, I’ve decided that the quintessential teenage mistake is… (drumroll) doing incredibly stupid things to impress a crush._

_Kinda looking forward to that. That’s one of the most underrated things about teenagedom, actually. Crushes. The more hopeless, the better._

_Hear me out! It’s all of the excitement, none of the work. You get the daydreams and butterflies, but no pressure, no responsibility.You can both be total nightmares! Literally an axe murderer? No problem. Someone reasonable who could be a healthy partner if you put effort into communication and compromise and yada yada yada? Who cares! It’s a crush. Just sit back and enjoy it, ‘cause nothing’s gonna happen!_

_Now, there’s a stretch in your 20s and 30s when they’re all getting married, which somehow feels worse than the axe murderer thing. But I have the good fortune to be hitting my teenage stride at this glorious age, when everyone who got their shit together at an appropriate age is finally. getting. divorced.  
_  
*

Through no fault of Maggie Tozier, there’s truth to the approval thing, and Richie’s relieved to hear Mike pick a couple Trashmouth originals to nerd out about on their way to get food. Well, for Richie to get food. Mike is so chill about watching Richie eat that Richie can’t feel too weird about it. It actually balances out the conversation: Mike has nothing to do but talk, while Richie’s mouth is often occupied. It works.

And Mike has a lot to say. He’s got Richie in the tractor beam of his excitement, too hooked on Mike’s stories to be embarrassed about his own approach to travel these days. Mike’s version involves a lot less bonding with hotel room art and a lot more… doing stuff in places. Stopping at roadside attractions, taking unfairly handsome selfies with landmarks large and small. 

Tonight, Richie is the landmark. He’s caught mid-bite over Mike’s shoulder and somehow, he doesn’t even notice until his phone vibrates with the notification from the groupchat.

“Mikelangelo,” Richie says, as serious as he can muster. “ _This_ is your masterpiece.” 

His phone vibrates again as soon as he puts it down, and Mike's still on his, so Richie braces himself for another awkward photo, or maybe a reaction. He's not braced for the sustained vibration of a phone call. Or for it to be Eddie.

Of course it's Eddie. It's a normal time for him to call, post-show, but for once, Richie's focus is elsewhere and he almost drops the phone.

"It's cool if you wanna take that," Mike says. He's put his own phone down, but his fingers inch back towards it.

Richie should just say that it's Eddie and put him on speakerphone. Mike would be glad to hear from Eddie; they could all catch up together. Nothing would be weird about that. But instead, Richie freezes, looking at Mike, finger hovering between "answer" and "ignore." Like somehow taking a call from his best friend is too much for Mike to see.

"I don't— I can call back later," Richie stumbles as the vibration stops. Mike raises an eyebrow, and _Answer me fuckfa e_ flashes at the top of the screen. Then it starts vibrating again. 

Richie accepts defeat. "It's Eddie." Like that explains it to Mike. Maybe it does, and that's worse. Either way, Mike doesn’t say anything, and Richie answers the call. He tries not to let his face do anything too embarrassing. “Hey, man,” he starts, because that’s a totally normal way to answer a totally normal phone call from a friend. “Everything okay?”

Eddie giggles.

Richie’s brain rejects this information at first. It’s not like he said anything funny, and even if he had, Eddie wouldn’t… _giggle_. There are plenty of reactions Eddie has to Richie, at least a few different laughs, but giggling is not one of them. “Eddie,” Richie says slowly, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. 

There’s some muffled sounds in the background; Richie waits. At about the same time that Mike asks, voice soft, if Richie can put on speakerphone, Eddie blurts, “I’m drunk!”

“So, Eds,” Richie starts, “did you just call to declare your state of inebriation? Or…?”

“Or what?” Eddie asks like it’s suggestive. But Richie, of all people, would know if it was suggestive. Right?

“You’re the one who called!” Richie’s flustered. Drunk Eddie has thrown off the balance and he doesn’t know what to say. Or maybe it’s Mike. He’s not a judgey guy, but he’s still there, observing… something. 

Mike speaks before Richie can find more words, speakerphone be damned. “Drunk Eddie! It’s been a while.”

And it has. Drunk Eddie, for Richie, lives in the Jade of the Orient, and he tries not to think too hard about it. Drunk Eddie is the press of their palms, the tension of a strong arm against his. It’s “Let’s take off our shirts and kiss.” God, yeah. Drunk Eddie could be dangerous.

“Mike’s here!” Richie says, a little too quickly. Obviously Eddie knows Mike’s there. Eddie, who knows Richie’s tour schedule, who definitely saw the photo in the groupchat, and who is capable of recognizing his friends’ voices. And Richie still hasn’t put him on speakerphone because he’s a mess, so he flails his fingers toward the button. 

So then they’re on speakerphone. Him, Mike, and Eddie. 

“There’s people here,” Eddie says. “Eli’s friends. It’s his birthday.” The background noise ebbs and flows. “You should sing for him! Different kind of singing telegram, he’ll flip a shit.” Then, before Richie can argue, there’s a rustling sound and a muffled “what?” from a voice that is decidedly not Eddie’s.

“I’m not fucking singing for you. I’d apologize but really you should thank me,” Richie says, presumably to Eli. 

“You should,” Mike agrees. He’s got that twinkly-eyed amusement going on.

“Thanks for getting Eds drunk, though? I think?” Richie says.

“That’s Richie Tozier! For real!” a distant Eddie yells, with an edge that almost feels like pride.

“I’ll grant you a birthday wish if you put Eddie back on, man,” Richie says, “as long as your wish is like, a ticket to my show next month.” Next month. Fuck. It feels so soon and also way too far away. Richie wants to be there now, at Eddie’s roommate’s dumb party, but if he were there he’d probably just get drunk — he’s been so good about not doing that — and avoid whatever he should be doing with the time he and Eddie occupy the same space. 

“Are you serious?” the kid — Eli — asks, incredulous. What is he turning, 21? Although he sounds relatively sober. But so fucking young.

“Eddie,” Richie orders, snapping his fingers. He’s not gonna waste time on this roommate guy when there’s Eddie to be had. Long-distance Eddie, the one he’s used to at this point. The one he can hear laughing in the background as the phone changes hands.

“Wow, man,” Mike says, and Richie remembers that tonight is supposed to be about a different Loser. The one who reworked his travel plans to share physical space with Richie. “It’s the guy’s birthday!”

“Yeah, well.” Richie gulps down some water and some guilt. “He’s got plenty more ahead of him.” He glances at Mike to gauge how much he’s actually being an asshole to one of the nicest people he’s ever met. Mike just looks… amused? Curious? Somehow it’s more unsettling than if Mike looked fed up with Richie’s bullshit.

“Richie!” Eddie’s back on the phone, and Mike’s grinning, and Richie feels slightly wobbly. Like the ground isn’t level underneath his feet, even though this seems like the kind of restaurant that would definitely do something about uneven floors.

“And Mike,” Mike adds. He’s still grinning, and for a second, Richie wonders if they both remember Drunk Eddie the same way, if Mike’s seeing flashes of the same night and wondering the things that Richie hasn’t been letting himself wonder. God. They should all be drunk, really; that’s probably why things had been so good that night until It got involved.

“Mike’s the smart one,” Eddie asserts.

“Gee, thanks, Eds.”

“Well, I can vouch for Richie’s writing,” Mike chimes in. “Smarter than his writers ever let him show.”

“I know _that_ ,” Eddie almost whines, like Mike’s condescending to him, but also maybe it’s not condescending if Eddie is an actual child.. “But Mike’s…”

“The best of us all,” Richie says, doing his best to clap Mike on the shoulder across the table.

Mike chuckles, still studying Richie. “Methinks the lad doth compliment too much?”

There’s a sound that could be some kind of impact with a wooden surface, and there’s frustration in Eddie’s voice. “No, Mike’s… there.”

“Of course! Makes a lot of sense, seeing as I’m clearly not also here.”

“He knows how to live.” Eddie says it like that’s that, he’s offered the definitive word on Mike’s life decisions, and he’ll hear no argument.

“Alrighty then.” Richie’s grinning. “Maybe I’ll learn something from him.”

“Or I will,” Eddie says, and Richie realizes that Eddie’s actually trying to say something and he has no idea what. What they’re supposed to learn from Mike. He knows he probably shouldn’t be grinning like an idiot while Eddie loses him in this conversation, but that’s just the way it goes. Richie doesn’t have time to gauge whether Mike’s noticed or not, though, because Eddie goes on. 

“I should be with you.”

Richie feels acutely aware of his surroundings: the draft from someone coming into the restaurant, the angle of his body as he leans toward the phone, the press of his arm against the table, the gentle buzz of people at the bar, the conspicuously restrained look on Mike’s face. He can only hope his own is so calm. Because a drunk friend saying he misses you is not a big deal.

“Feel free to teleport over,” Richie says. “I was just thinking what this place needs is a good arm wrestle.” 

For a second, no one laughs.

Any day now, Richie could start thinking before he speaks. When considered alongside their alien-induced trauma, it does seem possible. But not today. Jesus, he’s not even drunk.

Then Mike and Eddie start to speak at the same time. A jumble of “Is that what you’d —” and “If you really want to lose—” until they both stop.

“Don’t arm wrestle Richie,” Eddie says, firm, too earnest.

“Okay,” Mike says.

Richie’s brain is still struggling to transition from mortification to whatever the fuck is going on now. “I was just — Last time…” His hand goes reflexively to his almost-empty water. At least it’s cool on his skin.

“Yeahhhh,” Eddie draws out the word. Richie wants to rub the condensation on his face.

He can feel Mike’s gaze before he hears, “Should I — I can let you guys…”

“Mike!” Eddie nearly yells. “We should talk more! I talk to Richie most nights. And he’s coming to New York! Next month, he’s coming, did he tell you?”

*

The moment after Eddie hangs up is long. Richie stares at the phone and tries, just for a moment, to pretend that he’s not currently sitting in a restaurant with Mike, in Columbus, and that he doesn’t have to come up with something to say. He rubs at the back of his neck, as if that’ll help the tension around him to dissipate.

“Richie,” Mike says, gentle as ever. Richie’s still staring at the phone like not looking at Mike could make him invisible. But it’s Mike, and trying to hide in plain sight across the table from him isn’t going to make anything less embarrassing.

Richie sighs. “Mike,” he says, turning. He’s tempted to leave it at that, to make Mike broach the topic of what the fuck he just witnessed or to just let it slide. But instead, he says, “I really do feel about fourteen. The stupidest of stupid teenagers.” 

“I think you’re underestimating the depths teenagers are capable of,” Mike offers. “You’re just…” He trails off. Of course even Mike isn’t going to magically know the right thing to say. “... Feeling things,” he finishes.

Richie just sighs again. He sucks a piece of ice into his mouth and bites down. Mike waits, and of course Mike’ll win on patience. 

“I don’t know what to think,” Richie says to his glass. “I was just looking for a hint that… well. Now it’s like, everything he does looks like a hint!”

Richie can hear the crease between Mike’s eyebrows before he can bring himself to look. “That’s good, right?”

Good sounds so simple, not like the weight of this thing that he’s fought off hoping for so long, that is starting to feel almost… inevitable. Not just the countdown to New York, both excruciatingly slow and still too soon for Richie to get his footing. It has momentum now, but does that mean they’re ready? It’s not like they’ve unlocked the secrets of their post-Derry identities, but also they’ve lived in them, in each other’s orbit. Richie’s definitely not running on nostalgia at this point, but he’s still running to Eddie.

But if this is coming, if he and Eddie are both watching it creep closer, what does that even mean? What’s gonna happen when he gets there, and how much of a disappointment will it be? Is Richie supposed to show up at Eddie’s door with flowers? They’re forty, they’re past fairy tales, and Eddie’s never wanted to be swept off his feet. But Eddie wants to be here. With Richie. 

Part of him wants to look Mike in the eye and say, “You were here. This is really gonna happen, isn’t it?” To get Mike’s stamp of questionable sanity on this looming future that he wants to absolutely be ready for. Maybe to get Mike’s reassurance that he _is_ ready, that the pressure won’t crush him, that standing in front of Eddie again will feel right and good and not at all weird or anticlimactic. Things Mike can’t possibly know. 

Instead Richie fishes another piece of ice from his glass and just says, “It’s a lot.”

*

Richie spends all of Pittsburgh stressing about New York. Should he go straight to Eddie’s, or stop off at the hotel first? Eddie will be at the show; should Richie have something new, something Eddie hasn’t workshopped with him? Will Eddie just be bored as shit while Richie says the same jokes with a few tweaks? Why hasn’t he been planning for this all along?

Richie has watched the ends of enough rom coms on lonely hotel room nights to consider that the answer might be to tailor a set to Eddie, to write new jokes that in some vaguely subtle way declare his love in front of the crowd. And honestly, it’s not like there isn’t a seed of that in there; the Eddie of it all has definitely bled through into the set. 

But they’re too old for maximum drama to feel like the right goal. If this thing is going to happen, it should be pieces finally slipping into place. It should be easy. That’s how it’s always been with Eddie. The jabs, their own language, all the types of love.

What does Richie even stand to lose, really? They’ve been through too much together for any threat of friendship-ruining. Richie is very capable of handling some awkwardness if he’s... misjudging. He’s got experience with humiliation, but also… he knows Eddie loves him, one way or another. 

He also knows Eddie won’t hold a grudge when Richie’s anxiety cuts their call short. Eddie can probably use the extra sleep, even if Richie’s brain won’t shut up.

*

It’s early for them, but not actually early, when Eddie calls. Richie hasn’t properly gotten up yet, but that’s just because days off are few and far between, and whatever the middle of Pennsylvania had to offer, it doesn’t seem urgent.

Richie’s greeting is a bit more grunt than words, but Eddie doesn’t seem to notice. He plows on ahead without any greeting of his own. 

“New York is a cesspool,” he starts. “I don’t always hate the subway, but fuck, maybe I should. It’s basically like going back into the sewer but instead of the clown, there’s hoards of people pressed around you in a moving box, and each one of them is Schrodinger’s plague rat. And that’s… taking the subway is something I can do now, and I can feel good about it. But then some asshole has to stand next to me on the platform, spit _right there_ , and fucking grin.” 

There are a lot of jokes Richie should make, questions he should ask. But for once, he’s caught up in listening. Over the backdrop of city chaos, Eddie sounds a little out of breath, a little irritable, and a lot like everything Richie’s ever wanted.

“Where are you?” Richie asks. He autopilots to the window to ask himself the same question, to be annoyed by the answer because he’s not in New York. Not even upstate, which somehow comes before the city on the tour for routing reasons Richie doesn’t understand. “On the run from the law?”

“It’s New York, you have to walk fast!” Eddie protests, but the sound of his breathing evens out a little.

“What, you don’t want to stop and smell the car exhaust?”

“You live in the literal smog capital of the world!” Eddie snaps back.

“Yeah, and see how I’m not there? Home is overrated. I’m not in a rush.” It’s such a familiar thought, one Richie knows from every angle, but this time, it feels different. If he weren’t just talking about touring, it feels like... stalling. Even though he’s just talking about touring, it feels sour in his mouth. 

But then Eddie pulls him back. “You could rush here.”

“Yeah? You think I could keep up?” Richie can’t really stop to think about what any of it means. Eddie’s running down a busy street, he’s gonna get wherever he’s going; it’s not the time to go somewhere real. “How many tourists have you plowed over?”

“Today, or on average?” Eddie holds for the laugh, like the natural-born comedian he is. Or like someone who knows Richie extremely well. Before Richie can fully grasp that, Eddie continues. “It’s really the selfies that are the problem.”

“Ain’t that the way,” Richie says, thinking about the damage Eddie has been known to do with selfies of his own.

“They just stop walking! In the middle of the sidewalk! They’re not even gonna get a decent selfie that way, with a thousand people squeezing past their giant roadblock asses and jostling them!”

“Wow, Eds, tell us how you really feel.”

Eddie’s sigh is a little distorted, too close to the phone. “I just needed to get across town but I—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll let you go when you get…” Richie hesitates, “there.”

There’s a moment of city sound before Eddie responds. “This place is weirdly far from any reasonable subway line, but the Yelp reviews look good and I don’t want to buy a futon without at least feeling what it’s like and —”

“You’re bulldozing tourists across the city to buy a futon? At a particular place because you read reviews?

“I don’t want a shitty futon, Richie!”

“Of course not. It’ll be killer.” Richie can’t hide the ghost of a chuckle. “Is your powerwalking getting you there soon?”

Eddie hesitates. Horns honk and dogs bark around him, and Richie would almost be grateful for the quiet of nowhere Pennsylvania, except… Eddie.

“... Are you standing outside it right now? Are you actually?” _To talk to me?_ , Richie doesn’t say.

“Look,” Eddie says, somehow both exasperated and apologetic. “For all the years I’ve lived here, I don’t know if I can do the whole New York thing. Riding the subway is probably the best exposure therapy there is, and my roommates might get scurvy without me, but it’s like…You’re supposed to be busy _all the time_. Which I was always good at before, but now all I could think of to do on the way was call you, and I couldn’t even do that ‘til I got off the subway. It’s just… I know I’m kidding myself trying to start over now, at fucking 40, but also, we’ve been through too much not to try, right? After all those years It fucking stole?”

“Yeah,” Richie breathes. He’s feeling it again, that pull toward Eddie, the urge to... climb through his window or something. “We’ve got some years left. And you deserve… you deserve the best fucking futon in the world.”

“Right, well. You could benefit.”

“What?” Richie says, lost. His brain is still charting the shortest route to some futon store that might or might not be in Midtown.

“It’s not like it’s for me, dumbass.” Eddie’s tone is gentle, like he’s forgotten the rules of the banter even as he’s saying the words. “It’s for guests.”

Richie stares out the window for a moment. He listens to the rush of traffic as he watches absolutely nothing happen on the street outside his hotel. He squints, trying to see Eddie hunched against the side of the building, apart from the flow of people. He pictures the hotel booked for him in New York — comfortable, centrally located, dull — and Eddie’s sitcom apartment with a futon wedged in a corner.

“Hey, Eds, don’t let me keep you.” Richie’s mind is picking up speed and he can’t sit still, not even to keep Eddie’s voice in his ear. “I gotta go make a mistake, or 17.”

*

Richie’s not sure if he’s allowed to drive the van. Like, legally. He knows he’s not allowed to in the sense that he’d be leaving people who work for him, who absolutely deserve to be treated better, stranded at a hotel in the middle of Pennsylvania. There’s also the Steve-would-kill-him sense, but that might be unavoidable. Richie has accepted that his life will end at Steve’s hand someday, but he’s determined to get to Eddie first.

So, he does what any questionably rational man would do. He rents a car and starts driving. 

He keeps the windows down even as he pulls onto the highway. Something about the wind tearing at his hair makes him feel present in the moment, makes it feel real and maybe even right. He’s doing the thing, and it’s about as overdue as it is impulsive.

The adrenaline does eventually die down a bit (and Richie does close the window) because it turns out, no playlist or radio station is up to the task of keeping his thoughts empty for the full drive. He’s doing this, whether he thinks about it or not, so he’d better work shit out. He’ll have to park the car somewhere. He’ll have to get to Ithaca in time for tomorrow night’s show. He’ll have to say words to Eddie, and they probably won’t be the right ones because he’s a mess. But there’s nothing chill about driving to New York over a week early just to see him, and that’s undeniably what Richie’s doing.

When he stops to piss and caffeinate, he thinks about texting someone. There are lots of people he should text, probably. Steve, for starters, and Eddie. Instead, he texts Bev. 

_if i do something stupid and you don’t know about it am i still an idiot?_

_did you mean to text eddie? i’m the one who wants to know and support your idiocy_

_is there parking by eddie’s place?_ Richie’s not sure why he sends it, what he wants Bev to think. He’s not looking to be talked out of it, not at this point. Is he... bragging? What does Bev even know about him and Eddie and idiocy? Probably enough. Bev always knows things.

 _it’s new york_  
_are you_  
_what are you doing?_ The question of the hour. But Bev’s just asking to avoid assumptions.

Which Richie appreciates, even if he’s not ready to text the words. He manages, _i might be rushing_.

_richie. i love you. you’re not rushing_

*

Traffic is brutal, but at least it gives Richie something impersonal to tear his hair out over. Unfortunately, it also gives him time to look at his phone, to see that Steve wants to meet up for dinner. And that Eddie’s sent a series of photos of futons with captions like _This futon is too firm!_ , _This futon is too soft!_ , _This futon is juuuuuuuust— no fuck it’s lumpy and it hasn’t even been used yet._ Richie’s not ready to respond to any of it.

Standing outside Eddie’s door, though, is its own kind of brutal. He has to wonder if it’s creepy that he got into the building when someone was leaving (or that he drove up in the first place), and it probably gets creepier the longer he doesn’t knock. The waiting, the rushing, the pressure that’s probably all in his head anyway. The Eddie of it all.

Richie just breathes for a moment before knocking, and another after. He should have texted. 

But then he hears footsteps, and the door jerks open. Richie opens his mouth.

And so does the stunned, shaggy-haired kid in the doorway.

*

It’s not like Richie’s literally shown up with flowers, but he still feels caught, somehow. Exposed. And suddenly very aware that if some fan saw him powerwalking from his car and came up with the right joke, he could be a trending topic.

The kid gapes, but doesn’t move out of the way. “Is this my birthday wish?” he asks. It takes Richie a minute to process that this must be the roommate with the party (Levi? Eli? Eli.). Richie’s looking past him, taking in the familiar gray couch, the slightly compulsive mail system, the strategically placed vacuum next to the TV.

“Is Eddie…” Richie starts. He sounds too much like himself, with no chill. “...in the house?” He tries to flash a Trashmouth grin, and at least Eli moves to let him in. He didn’t even answer the question, damnit. “You’ll get your ticket, don’t worry.”

“Eddie!” Eli calls, without even turning, without looking away. Richie’s grateful that he’s still blinking, though. He can enjoy the ego boost of a fan encounter, just… not now.

“What do you—” Eddie’s voice starts, playfully annoyed. Then a door opens and he stops abruptly.

Richie turns slowly, breathes slowly, wills his thoughts to slow. He’s ready for this. Is he ready? Does ready exist?

Eddie is standing there in sweatpants and a polo. And grandpa slippers. His expression is caught on the edge of a smile, frozen there.

“Eds,” Richie says, because it’s the most important thing he can think of. 

“You didn’t text me back because you were _driving_?” Eddie says, incredulous.

“Yep,” Richie says. “Don’t take it personally; I didn’t text Steve back either.”

“You —” Eddie starts. 

Eli is just standing there. At least, until Eddie gives him a very pointed look.

“You should text Steve,” he says, but he’s looking at Eli, who seems to be getting the message on some level. The kid might not know why he’s leaving his apartment, but he is, and Richie’s grateful for that.

“Later,” Richie says. The door clicks shut and Richie takes a step forward. “I know I’m early.” He doesn’t know where to put his body, how close is appropriate. Should they sit down? “It just... felt like time.”

Eddie answers one question by closing the distance between them, wrapping arms firmly around him. The last time Richie’s felt this, they were in Derry and everything felt delicate, from battered bodies to a future with Losers in his life. Eddie’s arms had felt cautious, or maybe just weak, but now they’re solid. Sure. 

“You’re here,” Eddie says.

“Yeah,” Richie breathes. He pulls back just far enough not to risk his words getting muffled. “I didn’t want to wait.”

“Yeah? I thought you weren’t in a rush.”

“Yeah, well, I had a long drive to think about it and it seems like we — We lost enough time, right? I don’t want to wait another week just because of some booking agent bullshit.”

“I thought I had more time to prepare! It’s always too soon and too late, but I still want—” Eddie cuts himself. His eyes are wide and fixed on Richie’s, muscles taut, and Richie’s hanging on every word and the space between. “This _is_ …?” he trails off, leaving the question silent in the air between them.

“It is,” Richie confirms. “Between pollen and paparazzi, I skipped the flowers. But if you’ve got a platter, I’ll put my heart on it.” He mimes removing it from his chest and holds it out to Eddie.

“I had plans! The futon — But you’re here.” Eddie’s beaming through his distress and his grip tightens and Richie’s obsessed with it all. He wants to see it every day. Not that Eddie should be distressed every day but… well, he’s Eddie.

“Eddie. I will sleep literally anywhere. I bet the college kids would let me take the couch.” Richie remembers, suddenly, that he exists in physical space, and he braces himself on the back of said couch. “Or I could pretend to be a grown-ass man and get a hotel room.”

Eddie rolls his eyes before Richie can even properly raise an eyebrow. Then Richie’s glad for his hand on the couch, because Eddie Kaspbrak is kissing him, a little frantic, and it still feels like a miracle.

*

Hours later, they’ve retreated to Eddie’s room because roommates don’t stay gone forever, and Richie thinks it would be hilarious if they sent photos of him leaving Eddie’s room to TMZ.

“They wouldn’t do that,” Eddie insists, “and fuck you, being outed isn’t funny.”

“Eddie my love,” he says, and it sounds a little different now. “I am too gay right now to be contained.” He stretches out, filling space. It’s a small room, dominated by a twin mattress on the floor and an unusually nice dresser, and Richie feels himself expanding, like he could fill it.

“Right now?” Eddie asks, gaze following Richie’s arms. “Are you planning on getting less gay?”

“Not at all, man. Not at all.” He can’t help that soft feeling creeping in, can’t keep the grin off his face. “But now’s a good time, since Steve’s already gonna kill me. What should I tweet?”

“I hope you have that app that checks if you’re drunk before you touch Twitter.” Eddie eyes the phone in Richie’s hand, and the line between exasperated and fond is blurred beyond recognition.

“Hey, happy is not drunk!” Richie elbows Eddie and feels it, the same easy comfort in Eddie’s space as in their hammock days. “I make all my mistakes sober these days.”

“And I’m proud of you for it, but Twitter doesn’t need you now.” Eddie leans into Richie as if to grab for the phone, then flushes when Richie raises an eyebrow.

“It doesn’t,” he agrees, “but I’m serious about this. Not without warning Steve, but… not too long. Rushing into long overdue things is feeling pretty damn good right now.”

“Yeah? Not too late for us?”

“Listen. I am going to be so gay and so obsessed with you, you won’t know what hit you. Just to make up for lost time.”

*

Waking up in a twin bed with Eddie is not totally amazing because twins are so fucking small and because he can’t completely not care about the looming threat of TMZ, but mostly because it’s a new day. One that involves getting to Ithaca and being the victim of a justifiable homicide.

But at least they can eat breakfast together while Richie’s stomach gently objects to the idea of leaving Eddie here again. Eddie, who’s watching him and vibrating with a nervous energy that’s not quite his normal. Richie doesn’t kid himself that he can translate Eddie’s energy, not yet anyway, but it still strikes him as existential. They’re here, 40-year-old men kicking each other under the breakfast table, but where do they go from this?

“You know...” Richie tries to sound casual, but he’s Richie. “I could live in New York.”

Eddie shoots back immediately, aggressively, taking Richie by surprise. “Fuck New York.”

“... Or not. Where do you want to live?”

“You can’t just ask me that! I have to do research!”

Richie raises an eyebrow.

“I have to _finish_ my research. Analyze things.”

“Oh yeah you do, baby.”

“Don’t,” Eddie warns, like that has ever discouraged Richie.

“How about we scout out some places? Possibly… Ithaca, possibly tonight?”

“Oh my god, Richie! You have a show!” Eddie nearly shrieks. Who needs a cheering crowd when he can have Eddie Kaspbrak shrieking at him?

“You sound like Steve,” Richie says, raising a warning finger. “Don’t say anything about a five step plan.”

Eddie opens his mouth and closes it again, and somehow it’s deeply endearing.

“Before you say anything, I do not have manager issues,” Richie says, grinning. “I have literally never thought about Steve naked, and now that I’ve said that I have to and damnit, Eddie, you did that to me.”

“I absolutely did not.”

“Okay, on second thought, the five step plans _might_ be the sexiest thing about him.” Richie watches a new type of tension spread through Eddie’s body, the way he flaps his hands at his sides ineffectually as he starts to form a response. But Richie plows on. “But the bar’s higher for you, they’re not in the top 50. _Except_ if step one is coming to Ithaca tonight.”

Eddie sighs, and Richie wonders, for a moment, if he really is rushing, if his giddy teenage hopes have gotten carried away. But then Eddie’s admitting, “I may have called out sick today,” and Richie finds his head cocked like a dog, quizzical. “That’s a yes. But I have to be back tomorrow,” Eddie clarifies.

“You called out sick?” Richie’s not sure how to process all the other emotions, but confusion he can handle.

“Yeah, so?” Eddie crosses his arms across his chest, playfully defensive and defiant. “Guess I didn’t want to rush this part.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](https://templeofshame.tumblr.com/post/643828924060680192/wide-awake-on-memories-16k-rated-t-richies-not)!


End file.
